Me and the Devil
by aesc36
Summary: [set in and around "F.P.S"] Goren tries to exorcise his demons.


Disclaimer: 'Law & Order: Criminal Intent' is property of Dick Wolf and NBC. I am neither of these things. Lyrics quoted from "Me and the Devil Blues" by Robert Johnson.

Notes: A bit of introspection in and around "F.P.S." I really loved Goren's frustration at being unable to articulate his thoughts on the case to Bishop, and decided to mess around with that. This is my first 'Law & Order: CI' fic; as a rule, my first fic forays tend to be rambling, introspective, and generally nonsensical as I try to get a hold of a character, and so I crave your indulgence.

-HF-

Early this morning you knocked upon my door,

And I said, "Hello Satan, I believe it's time to go."

ME AND THE DEVIL

The alarm goes off, and he fumbles sleepily to silence it. Once the blaring stops, he starts thinking. Again.

Last night had been night like any other. Ages spent falling asleep, words and images and things recycling themselves, getting in the way of his own thoughts. His thoughts, Robert Goren's thoughts. It's harder, getting back to himself, to thinking about the case with- what's her name? -Corrine. The girl who got flung off her balcony.He wanders to the bathroom, forcing himself to be logical as he dredges up the case details.

How's that song go? He rinses, spits, considers shaving. The question flits around, and he chases after it._ I'm going slightly mad_.

As he dresses and heads to work, he can't stop thinking. As a rule he doesn't stop thinking - there's usually something or other going on in his head- but now it's the useless stuff that he's turned over and over and can never resolve. Thoughts like these, impotent, circular, dwelling too much on the past and what can't ever be changed, have been coming more frequently of late.

There was one time, years ago when he'd first moved to Major Case. He'd overheard two detectives, Fielding and whatshisname- Belmont -, talking about a suspect they'd sent up for arraignment. "Fwoo, he was a bit- y'know." Belmont rolled his eyes, twirled his finger in the universal sign for 'crazy.' "One more nutcase off the streets, at least." Fielding had snickered.

He'd been really close to putting Belmont's head through the wall, or dragging him into the interrogation room and sinking the fear of God into him. The look he'd given Belmont had been filthy enough, though; the other detective had stared at him, said something to his friend, and slunk away. Not long after that the "crazy Bobby Goren" whispers started circulating. Joking mostly, but it was the nature of the joke that angered him, that trapped him now.

He knows that most mentally ill people aren't dangerous. Those who are sometimes can't be properly treated - most of the time because insurance or Medicaid don't cover medications, or because they're homeless, or go undiagnosed - and so the darkness becomes too real, the fear too compelling.

He knows, and hates it. Hates that fate and faulty wiring can trip up decent people, while those whom the world judges sane commit crimes with eyes wide-open. Hates that he feels like he's toeing the line too often, staring down into a strange, distorted space that's too familiar.

_Think, think_. All the clutter in his skull makes it difficult; he's having a hard time concentrating on this case and the here and now. Where the hell is Eames? Part of him knows she's gone on maternity leave, and is due any day now. He'd put fifty bucks in the office pool for today (and Eames would kill him if she knew). A couple weeks and she'll be back, he hopes. But it's weeks still, and this case needs solving. Another part of him refuses to believe she's not there; it's convinced that, the next time he looks over his shoulder, she'll be there, steadying him, ready to throw him a lifeline, or pick up the thread of his thought.

So he gets angry when he looks and looks and she's not there. Call it crazy- and it probably is- but he wants to vent some of that frustration. He needles Bishop every now and then, to remind her (and himself) that she's not Eames, and all of this is temporary, but that can only go so far, and doing that to her is like kicking a puppy.

Now, conveniently enough, Abe McVee is sitting right next to him, and is not cooperating, so he lets himself dig in a bit. It's good; he'd forgotten how good it can be, to channel his own pain into another human being. He tries not to, but sometimes (like now) it's easy. Cathartic.

"I bet your wife would like to know about that, huh? Because according to this paper, you're twenty grand short of child support!" McVee is trying to talk over him, but he rides over the objections. He's on it- he can feel the heat rising in him, the dark, ecstatic power he knows he shouldn't feel. "What's the matter? Your lawsuit wasn't going well for you? Huh? So you had to hurt your family? Is that what it is? Lash out at Jack? Lash out at your wife?"

McVee's shouting now, about Jack and Neil and- _Croyden_. All the power drains out of him.

It's not McVee. He's been played.

Patterns have bombarded him all day, kaleidoscopic- every time he shakes them, the pieces fall into new patterns, too fast for him to process. Familiar elements, new ones. Patterns in fighting, _once to the neck, once to the thigh_, need, security... Neil... why does Neil make him think of Croyden? Or worse, Hitchens? He feels things shifting, changing as he struggles for a new perspective, but it's too fast- too fast. This is when he starts fidgeting and talking; he can't stop it, because it's either fidget and babble or go nuts. So he starts spilling it all out -random connections of Croyden, Hitchens, McVee's pattern, Stevens... Bishop wants an explanation, but he can't explain it, doesn't want to. Where the hell is Eames? She would know.

Belmont's expressionbakc thenhad been not unlike the look Bishop gets on her face sometimes. She looks at him like she's half-certain he'll suddenly go all the way over, like right now, when he's trying to work out who wanted to murder that girl. He's trying to tell her how they're all similar, Croyden, Neil, and Wally the actuary with his five notes, so she can help him understand...

She can't. She tells him as much, her words tight and frustrated.

"Eames would have known." The rational side of him means it to excuse her from not understanding, because she hadn't been there and couldn't know; the part of him that is over-worked and frustrated is savagely pleased when she stalks off, stewing in her humiliation and inferiority, leaving him alone with Eames's empty chair.

_Think_. He stares where Eames should be, and is furious when she doesn't appear. He snatches a piece of paper, crushes it, and savagely hurls it at where Eames should be. The chair remains unaffected, and Eames doesn't materialize, which should make him even more angry. But it doesn't. He feels a little better, as though he's managed to hurt Eames for leaving him and Bishop for being obtuse and Eames's chair for being empty.

_Hurt, guilt_... he glances around, hoping no one's seen his little display; the reminder that he's in a public place, with curious eyes watching him, calms him a bit, enough to hear the voice of reason in his head.

"You're being played, Bobby," she says from the back of his head. "You know who's playing you."

He concentrates, listening to the phantom of her voice inside. _Think it out. You know it. You know who_

_Neil. _

Everything falls into place; the threads unravel cleanly; they're all spread out before him, neat, logical: two partners, brilliant in different ways, and one desperately afraid the other would leave forever. _I know how that feels_. He doesn't need to check any of his profiling or psychopathy volumes to know he's right, and when Bishop gets back, he'll lay it all out for her, nice and neat and not-crazy, and they'll get this guy when all is said and done.

_If my partner __was putting me through that- abandoning me, leaving me vulnerable... impotent- for a nobody? That's unforgivable_.

His own words lace through the triumph at having closed the case and drown out Alex's soft, tired voice introducing him to her baby. They're so much clearer. He hates them, hates himself for knowing how true they are- and that was why he hadn't needed to confirm his suspicions.

_Abandoned, vulnerable, impotent_. That was how he'd felt, staring at her empty desk. No amount of reassurance could quell that fear- that terrible, shuddering fear that had brought back memories of being young and watching, frightened, as they took his mother away and his father vanished. Too close, too close, and he knows it, how close he came to being lost and not finding his way back.

That's another thing that people say: genius and madness walk hand-in-hand. He knows what that's like personally; there's enough reason in him to know he walks too close sometimes, dances with the devil too often- because if you dance with the devil, you're going to get burned, and one day he'll be incinerated. He'd gotten burned today. He turns away from the thought, wishing he could concentrate on Alex and her baby, and her coming back. _Abandoned, vulnerable... impotent_.

His thoughts fragment, as he lies there in his bed, and each one cuts like glass at the edges of sleep.

-end-


End file.
